


not used to that acceptance thing

by greymahariel (acceptnosubstitutes)



Series: command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present [5]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Gift Giving, Humor, Internalized racism, queer friendship ftw, suggestive implications
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-02 03:02:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4043341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acceptnosubstitutes/pseuds/greymahariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inquisitor Elijah Lavellan leaves Sera an ivory carving of a halla in her room one morning, and Sera wants to know why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not used to that acceptance thing

**Author's Note:**

> Holy shit. This was supposed to be a little _drabble_ at best, and look how long it got. Feels so satisfying writing fic again, and feeling it flowing like it's _supposed_ to flow.
> 
> Came out of a little obsession of why Sera keeps a stuffed fake halla, without even deriding the Dalish, in her personal cabinet of stuff.

Sitting cross-legged on the windowsill, Sera gingerly picks up the ivory carving by one thin, curved white antler and squints at like it might explode. It’s all a delicate thing, barely weighing anything, but deceptively solid for all it seems the slightest touch would break something.

And it’s a deer.

She turns the carving this way and that, examining it from all angles. The only thing she ends up figuring out is the carver is damn good at their job. The ivory appears to have come into existence in the shape of the deer, instead of the other way around.

Not just a deer either. One of them Dalish things, isn’t it? Like the beast Lavellan prefers to ride when given half a choice. With the massive antlers rising from the top of it’s furry head, delicate ears twitching at the slightest sound. Dark red coat almost the same color as Lavellan’s hair.

A halla.

Well, what the shite was it doing on her end table?

Sera sits the carving back on the table with a snort, forgetting about the thing for almost an hour while she pokes through the book she swiped - ahem, _borrowed_ \- from the Inquisition library. Turns the book this way and that, more interested in the scenes of battle carefully painted on the pages than the dreary, highly boring text hurting her head.

By the time she makes a disgusted noise at it that would make Cassandra proud, tossing it aside, she’s upside down on the windowsill, precariously balanced with her ankles neatly crossed against the glass and blonde hair floating bare inches off the ground.

From this angle she regards the halla again, lips twitching into a brief frown.

“Stop staring,” she mutters, glaring right at its unflinching, tiny black eyes.

The halla doesn’t utter a peep. Somehow, that makes her scowl harder. Well, who put the thing there? And how pissed would Lavellan get if she left it somewhere they were prone to sitting down without looking?

Giggling, Sera scoops up the carving and scampers out of her room. When all else fails, ask Blackwall, right? He’s a Warden, and Wardens know about all that sort of mysterious shite, don’t they? She’d ask Solas, because halla, but. He’s _Solas_.

Blackwall glances up from his workbench when Sera enters the stables, lips quirking in a slight smile. He smooths a hand down the edge of one curved, wooden griffon wing and raises an eyebrow in her direction when she perches the halla on the bench next to his current project.

He picks up the carving anyway, humming while he traces a careful finger along one antler.

“Impressive craftsmanship,” Blackwall says.

Sera shrugs.

“If you say so, Beardy. Found it this morning.”

Blackwall nods, eyes drifting back to the halla for a long moment of silence. Then they sidle back to Sera.

“And?”

Sera hops up onto the workbench, careful to avoid jarring the griffon, and swings her legs back and forth in the air.

“Found it this morning,” she repeats, “but _why_?”

“Ah,” Blackwall says, sounding like he suddenly understands completely.

Good, because she sure doesn’t. She stays below while Blackwall climbs the stairs to the loft above, leaning dangerously to the side to get a better look at the griffon.

“Careful,” Blackwall calls, the sound of his footsteps descending the stairs moments later.

“Pfft. Why you always make them so, so, I don’t know. Serious Mr. Serious Griffon,” Sera asks, grinning when he chuckles.

“Tell you what,” he says, coming closer, “fit one out in full kit, wings extended. Little Sera on its back. Here.”

Sera giggles, already picturing wooden her, preparing to fling herself off the bird’s back at some unseen enemy. She almost feels the wind screaming through her hair now.

“What’s this?”

Sitting in the palm of her hand is the likeness of another griffon, this meticulously carved out of some blue material she doesn’t recognize. Kind of Wardeny blue. It sits heavy in her hands, wings jutting out of its back at sharp angles, head held lofty, proud.

Blackwall leans against a wooden support, crossing his arms.

“It’s a gift from Lavellan.”

From Lavellan? 

Sera hands the griffon back to Blackwall, noting how carefully he sets it up on a high shelf, in prominent spotlight where it might be seen but also protected from ungentle handling.

“Oooooh,” she says, getting it now too. “The halla. Lavellan?”

Well, _why_?

-  
The things are everywhere.

Tiny wooden mabari, tongue hanging out the side of its little mouth and short, stubby tail poised as if it ought to be wagging furiously given a place of honor on Cullen’s desk, where he uses it as a paperweight but smiles at the sight of it when he thinks no one’s looking.

Leliana’s are a flock of different birds - ravens, hawks, big birds, small ones, in all sorts of poses in shades of color. They line the shrine to Andraste on the top floor of the main tower, like little offerings.

For some reason, Cassandra blushed terribly when Sera asked her about the wooden lady dressed up in templar armor she saw her rubbing a thumb across one trip out in the Hinterlands. 

Josephine preens when Sera notices the fancy, schmanzy mask lit up in glitter and rich fabrics, a long rod connected to the bottom to allow it to be brought up to the face. She laughs when Sera picks it up and makes funny faces with it. Maybe it’s all right.

Vivienne’s isn’t even recognizable at all, all curvy lines and shapes, like a crooked ladder missing rungs and twisting up and down in weird places. The enchanter primly informs her it is _art_ , and fine she doesn’t understand. What’s she know anyway.

Sera pokes and prods at the miniature version of a sprawling city occupying Dorian’s usual desk in the library. Some towers rise high in the same kind of nobly snobbishness she hates, which is why she isn’t surprised when Dorian informs her it’s the Circle of Magi Tower in Minrathous. Then tells her to please keep her greasy fingers away from the, yes, admittedly phallic appearing “magey place”.

Bull keeps a little iron dragon strung on leather thong, next to a broken dragon tooth. He strokes it so carefully whenever he moves too soon, or something jars an uncomfortable place, mouth twisted in a grimace but touch reverent. 

For Varric, a miniature statue of the Champion of Kirkwall. He smiles so sadly at it sometimes, Sera can't bear to look at him.

Solas is weird about his, as usual. Sera doesn’t see what’s so bloody wrong with the wolf carving left sitting in the corner of his desk despite his frequent, long broody stares. It lays regally on a platform made to look like stone, and Sera starts staring at it herself, hair raising on the back of her neck for reasons she can’t place.

She doesn’t dare get close enough to the demon to figure out what he has, but that’s okay, because he shows up randomly, out of the blue and utters some nonsense about ships and the open water, sun hot on the face but breathing easy, in one, two, three, he is free and - she honestly stopped listening at that point.

Point is, everyone has one. No one seems bothered enough to question Lavellan. She wonders if they showed up as randomly, or if Lavellan just figured she’d make fun of the halla if he gave it to her in person.

He’s right, that one. Wouldn’t have been able to resist.  
-

Sera throws Lavellan’s door open hard enough to make sure it bangs against stone jarringly.

Lavellan pokes his head out from under the covers, blinking blearily, and scowls at his unwelcome guest now in the middle of his private quarters.

She just gives him a wide grin and sticks her tongue out at him.

“Sera,” he whines, “what. _What_ do you want?”

“Oh, stick it, elfy,” she says, jumping onto the bed and settling in. “S’not my fault _someone_ clearly didn’t get to bed till light time this morning.”

Behind him, Iron Bull makes some amused, rumbly noise. A thick arm comes around Lavellan’s waist, securing the sheets in place to prevent him from accidentally flashing Sera when he sits up in his lap.

“Got a question for you,” Sera says, overriding Lavellan’s muttered protests.

Instead of asking, Sera drops the halla between his legs, giggling when he squawks in indignation.

“Kinda got the wrong equipment, Not-Herald of No-Maker.”

Lavellan rolls his eyes, but picks up the carving gingerly, turning it around and handing it back to her.

“Okay?”

Sera prods his shin, hard, but she takes the halla back and settles it carefully in her lap.

“ _Why_. The. Halla. Thing.”

Lavellan shrugs, yawning. He winces as he stretches to cover his mouth, and Sera notes the edge of a nasty looking purplish bruise over his hip peak out under the covers. She snickers, wriggling her eyebrows at Bull, who settles a proprietary hand there with a wicked grin.

Lavellan’s either too sleep addled to catch onto the unspoken conversation going on between them, or doing his damned best to ignore them so he doesn’t have to shoot them both with pointy arrows. Sera’s betting on the latter.

“It’s a gift,” he says, slowly, rubbing a fist into one eye and yawning again. “You know. People do that sometimes, they give gifts to their friends.”

Sera shifts, a little uncomfortably. There’s that word again. _Friend_. Not that she dislikes it, at least from the Inquisitor. He’s an all right sort, she supposes, even if he is a bit too elfy at times. Heart’s in the right place and he’s got a delightfully devious streak in the right mood.

It just. Her stomach squirms when he calls her that. Friend. He means it. Gets that light, warm feeling like fluffy clouds are bouncing around down there for shite’s sake. Or, and she prods the tip of the carving’s antlers, like fur.

That’s an odd thought. She pauses, then giggles softly.

Lavellan squints at her but refrains from asking.

“To be honest,” he says, “didn’t know what to get you. Then I saw that stuffed one in your room. What did you _do_ to the poor thing?”

What she actually did was take the halla into the kitchen during one late night experimenting baking cookies. For the sleepy mess of an elf, random tufts of red hair sticking up in odd directions, sitting in front of her. But like she’s going to tell him that. At least not until they start coming out a little softer. And actually look like deer, instead of shapeless blobs.

The halla just got too close to the mixing bowl one day when she was dripping the excess batter from a failed attempt down the stairs for the fun of it.

Its ears are a little chewed on from Hawke’s mangy mutt, but hey, she _refrained_ from gnawing on the dog’s ears back in response. Lavellan should be proud.

And, in the privacy of her own mind, the stuffing’s bunched up in the wrong places from being squeezed so hard in the dark, late at night.

“Oh, that,” she says. Sera just shrugs, blowing him a raspberry when he tsks at her.

Then she picks the ivory halla up again, hesitant.

“So it’s a gift.”

“It’s a gift. Now please go, fuck, scribble s’more dicks in Solas’ important books.”

Giggling.

“Telling him you did it!”

“Sera, I don’t give a flying fuck. My fucks are all barren right now. I’m _tired_. Go away.”  
-

So the halla gets to stay, Sera decides. She clears some space for it amongst her other treasures and has to admit, it does look rather fetching on top of the boring university books, right next to a few empty bottles including the one with Lavellan’s name scrawled across the front in scribbly, harried penmanship.

When Blackwall upholds his promise and delivers Sera her very own griffon, complete with battle gear and a tiny wooden Sera on its back, much to her delight, the halla even makes the perfect mount for waging war across a series of pies she stole - again, _liberated_ \- from the kitchen staff.

She “practices” jumping off the griffon’s back, complete with appropriate sound effects, onto the halla and the marches it through cream filling, clicking her tongue for hoof noises. Licks the cream off when she’s satisfied.

Her first knitting project: a tiny, dark red scarf she loops around the halla’s neck. It’s all lumpy and shite, one big hole near the bottom where she tore the fabric in frustration. 

The halla obtains chips, little notches from being knocked into tables, dragged across roofs, and one leg nearly completely breaks off. Sera patches the stump with a tiny, makeshift bandage. Calls it a war wound.

Some of the details eventually fade, worn from the constant, worried rubbing of a thumb, particularly when Mr. Not-Herald of No-Maker loses his fucking mind and absorbs that elfy shit at the temple pursuing Coryphneus.

But there it stays, a permanent fixture in Sera’s horde even as it continues to grow and change, multiply and take over cabinet space.

It’s special.

It’s from _him_.


End file.
